Re: Market failure to sufficently weigh the future

From: hal@finney.org
Date: Thu Nov 02 2000 - 14:01:16 MST


Robin writes:
> On net none of these policies may be a good
> idea, even when we realized that the social horizon is longer than the
> individual horizon.

That's another thing that bothers me about this paper. Is it really
showing that the social horizon is longer than the individual horizon?
It looks to me like the analysis in the paper applies just as well to
an individual as to a society. The individual discounts the future, but
as well intentioned planners we may put a higher weight on future selves
than he does. In that case we can say that making the individual adopt
a longer time horizon will make him happier on average over the course
of his lifetime.

Hal



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